explaining_errors_in_star_trekfandomcom-20200215-history
Trials and Tribble-ations
In the Arne Darvin '' |image= |series= |production=40510-503 |producer(s)= |story=Ira Steven Behr Hans Beimler Robert Hewitt Wolfe |script=Ronald D. Moore René Echevarria |director=Jonathan West |imdbref=tt0708655 |guests=Jack Blessing as Dulmer, James W. Jansen as Lucsly, Charlie Brill as Arne Darvin, Leslie Ackerman as Waitress, Charles S. Chun as Engineer, Deidre L. Imershein as Lt. Watley |previous_production=Nor the Battle to the Strong |next_production=The Assignment |episode=DS9 S05E06 |airdate=4 November 1996 |previous_release= (DS9) The Assignment (Overall) Sacred Ground |next_release=(DS9) Let He Who Is Without Sin (Overall) Future's End Part 1 |story_date(s)=4523.7 (2373/2268) |previous_story= Sacred Ground The Assignment |next_story=Future's End Part 1 }} =Summary= On board Deep Space Nine, Captain Benjamin Sisko is being queried by Department of Temporal Investigations agents Dulmer and Lucsly. The Captain explains that he was on the USS Defiant, returning from Cardassian space with the Bajoran Orb of Time. They had picked up a hitchhiker on the way, a human called Barry Waddle. Suddenly the ship found itself some 200 light years away from its previous location and a hundred years in the past, near Deep Space Station K7 and found the USS Enterprise in orbit. They discover that the hitch-hiker was Arne Darvin, a Klingon agent who had previously been caught by Captain James T. Kirk on K7 whilst trying to poison a shipment of grain. Fearing that Darvin may be attempting to assassinate Kirk, the crew dress in period uniforms and investigate the Enterprise. They attempt to interact with history as little as possible whilst investigating Darvin. The crew does not initially recognize the Klingons of the time period, and when Worf is asked about the difference in appearance, he replies that the matter is not discussed with outsiders. Doctor Julian Bashir and Chief Miles O'Brien get involved in a bar brawl between the Enterprise crew and a number of Klingons on shore leave. Captain Kirk disciplines them on the Enterprise alongside Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott and Ensign Pavel Chekov. Bashir and O'Brien notice that the ship is covered with tribbles. Lieutenant Commander Worf and Odo trail Darvin as he returns to the Defiant. There, Darvin admits that he planted a bomb in a tribble to kill Kirk. Sisko and Lieutenant Jadzia Dax board the Enterprise but can find no trace of a bomb. They travel to K7, and scans indicate that the bomb is in the grain storage compartments. They enter the compartments and discover that the poisoned grain has all been eaten by tribbles, who are now all dead. Suddenly Captain Kirk opens the compartment and is covered in falling tribbles. Dax and Sisko find the bomb before it can kill Kirk and the Defiant transports it into space where it explodes. The crew of the Defiant use the Bajoran Orb to travel back to the present time, and Sisko finishes explaining the situation to the Temporal Agents. The episode ends with Quark in his bar on Deep Space Nine's promenade, with numerous tribbles around him. =Errors and Explanations= Internet Movie Database Plot holes # Years earlier Worf encountered Scottie in the TNG episode Relics. Prior to the mess hall fight on K7 Worf is once again in the same room with a younger Scottie. Why didn't Worf make any mention of this encounter? He knows this would be regarded as a potential violation of the Temporal Prime Directive. Nit Central # Johnny Veitch on Sunday, December 13, 1998 - 6:22 am: Sisko refers to Kirk fighting the Gorn on Cestus III. But that was the planet at the beginning of the episode, where the Gorn fired photon torpedoes at the away team. Rene on Thursday, August 23, 2001 - 8:01 pm:'' I believe that counts as fighting the Gorn on Cestus III. Seniram The true facts of that encounter could have been classified, or become distorted over time.' # ''Chris Thomas on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 7:34 pm: As far as I can remember everyone on the original Enterprise in this episode was clean shaven and almost all Starfleet personnel of this time was the same (and admiral may have been an exception). So if being clean shaven is a requirement - and I know in the police where I am you can't have any more than a moustache - why doesn't anyone notice Sisko's beard? Charles Cabe (Ccabe) on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 7:40 pm: Captain "By the book" Styles wears a moustache in Star Trek III, so it might not be required to be cleanshaven, just unfasionable. (I am certain that someone would have said something if Dax had a beard, though :) Chris Thomas on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 7:48 pm: If that's the only evidence, the rules could have changed in the 20 years between TOS and STIII.Lord Garth on Tuesday, January 05, 1999 - 11:33 am: The Captain of the Bozeman from Cause and Effect had a beard. Seniram And they set out in 2278! # Cableface on Monday, March 01, 1999 - 2:25 pm: Dax says that one of Dax's former hosts was on Earth and had a relationship with McCoy nearly a hundred years before the Next Generation. But in that episode, no one has heard of the Trill and Crusher is shocked to find that they are a joined species. Ed Jefferson (Ejefferson) on Sunday, January 10, 1999 - 6:55 am: Yeah, but the TNG trill and the DS9 trill are completely different anyway. (Phil notes this in the DS9 Guide) Chris Todaro on Wednesday, January 13, 1999 - 8:48 pm: Or maybe she was disguised and didn't tell him she was a trill? I somehow can't picture McCoy sleeping with a woman who had once been a man who had once been... # Rodnberry on Saturday, January 23, 1999 - 1:36 am: I wonder why TPTB didn't come up with at least a half-plausible explanation in this ep for the change of the Klingon physiology? They really missed the boat on this one! Why not have Worf explain, maybe at or near the end of the ep how Klingons went from human looking with slightly satanic looks to having ridges on their heads? I hoped they'd explain that, and even the novelization didn't either! I really hoped that would. I read an ST novel that supposedly explained that but I didn't catch it (my mind must've been elsewhere) and it's been sometime since I read it. I think it was "The Final Reflection," with a young Spock playing a boardgame with a human looking Klingon officer. Has anyone read it and remember the story? Murray Leeder on Saturday, January 23, 1999 - 11:21 am: We got the right answer. This was a comedy episode. An appropriate answer would have seemed out of place. What we needed was a joke. Rodnberry on Sunday, January 24, 1999 - 4:54 am: Yes, I know but still it would've been nice to have some acceptable reason for the change Klingons went through. Oh, well. Maybe some things are best left to the imagination, I s'pose. Seniram ''SPOILER ALERT The Original Series Klingons are probably descended from Klingons afflicted by the Augment virus.' # ''Jason Krietsch on Monday, March 01, 1999 - 4:51 pm: O'Brien must have flunked grade school. In Generations, The captain of the Enterprise B said he learned about Kirk and the original Enterprise's missions in grade school, or something to that effect, yet O'Brien doesn't know what Kirk - a prominent figure in history - looks like! Annonymous no 1 on Tuesday, March 02, 1999 - 5:59 am: With all due respect, how important IS Kirk? and isn't it concievable that he won't be remembered that much? How many people here know what Climenco(sp?) French PM during world war two looks like? Mike Konczewski on Tuesday, March 02, 1999 - 7:19 am: Okay, so I don't remember what Clemenceu looks like, but I know what Churchill, Eisenhower, and FDR (contemporaries of Clemenceu) looked like. For that matter, I know what US Grant, Robert E. Lee, Peter the Great, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams looks like. As to his importance, Kirk is responsible for saving the Earth on at least one occasion (from V'Ger), and the Universe on several occasions. Plus, Kirk is (to quote Janeway) a larger than life character. Those type of people get remembered (like George Custer or Samuel Clemens), while their less interesting counterparts (like George McClellan or Bret Harte) don't. # Christopher Q on Sunday, March 07, 1999 - 11:31 am: The Defiant had to wait for a gap in the Enterprise scan cycle before they could decloak & beam. Why? In ST:IV, who could beam off and on while the ship was cloaked. Charles Cabe (Ccabe) on Sunday, March 07, 1999 - 1:13 pm: The Defiant was trying to avoid being detected by the old Enterprise. In San Franciso, Kirk didn't have to worry about it. ' # ''Keith Alan Morgan on Thursday, April 29, 1999 - 6:30 am: Once again the amount of information in a starship's computer memory confounds and amazes. Worf is showing the pictures of Arne Darvin and the Defiant's memory has a picture of the young Darvin, what he did, how he was treated by Klingon Intelligence and what he did for a living afterwards. All this while they are trapped in the past with no way to contact any other 24th century computers for this information. '''This is a significant moment in Federation/Klingon relations, due to the Klingons insisting on the right to take shore leave on a Federation space station, as laid out in the Treaty of Organia. # Shouldn't a waitress on a Federation Space Station report to Security someone who was ordering Klingon drinks? ''Brian FitzGerald (Fitz1980) on Sunday, November 05, 2006 - 12:01 pm:''Why? People like all kinds of stuff from other countries today, especially if they are supposed to be civilians on a deep space station that is frequented by traders who travel all over the place. # LUIGI NOVI on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 - 11:36 pm: In the beginning of Act 1, Dulmur and Lucsly speak disdainfully of Kirk, mentioning that he committed 17 separate temporal violations. How could Kirk have committed such violations if Temporal Investigations wasn’t even around back then? In addition to the possible evidence I mentioned above that Temporal Investigations wasn’t around in Kirks’ time, when the charges against Kirk were read at the end of ST IV, temporal violations were never mentioned. Haven’t Dulmur and Lucsly ever heard of the legal term ipso facto? Doesn’t the Federation have such guarantees for its citizens? Josh M on Wednesday, April 09, 2003 - 5:44 pm: Just because Temporal Investigations wasn't around in Kirk's time, doesn't mean that the Federation or Starfleet had laws and rules about what to do and what not to do when time travelling. Also, you assume that Temporal Investigations is the very first branch of the Federation or Starfleet that monitors and/or investigates time travel incidents. # I wasn’t aware that “Arne Darvin” was a Klingon name. I simply assumed it was the alias he used in The Trouble with Tribbles (TOS), but in this episode, we find out that “Barry Waddle” is really “Arne Darvin,” according to Worf., meaning that Arne Darvin is his real name. Does “Arne Darvin” sound like a Klingon name to you? Shouldn’t the writers have instead have established his real Klingon name? Benn on Saturday, April 05, 2003 - 8:02 pm: Maybe the Klingons deleted 'Arne Davin's' real name from their records when he was exposed as a spy. They could then claim that he was a rogue Klingon with no ties to the Empire. (No one would believe them of course, but thats not the point. Which would be that you couldn't prove he was working for the Klingon goverment). # Does this guy seem like a Klingon to you? He’s short, frail-looking, and cowers quite quickly in Act 4 in response to Worf and Odo’s dressing him down when Darvin speaks of the statue he expects to be built in his honor. Josh M on Wednesday, April 09, 2003 - 5:44 pm: I'm sure not every Klingon is a strong, honor-hungry, super-warrior. In fact, Darvin's physical presence may have been one of the reasons that he was chosen as an infiltrator in the first place. And after all these years, he still never got around to hitting the gym. # The DS9 crew use old style communicators and tricorders when operating on the Enterprise and the station. Why not hide modern comm badges inside their shirts, as Worf did in Homeward (TNG), and perhaps use modern tricorders disguised as older ones? Benn on Saturday, April 05, 2003 - 8:02 pm: To prevent contamination of the timeline. If the equipment avalible in Kirks time was capable of scanning for Davin (which it was) then talking more advanced technology is to risk it falling into the wrong hands - plus it would take some explaining if someone had taken a look at their equipment and realised it wasn't standard issue in Kirk's time. ''' # Why do they have to search for the bomb manually, and using the Enterprise’s sensors? Why not use the more sophisticated sensors of the Defiant? ''Brian FitzGerald (Fitz1980) on Sunday, November 05, 2006 - 12:01 pm:'' Probably because the Enterprise would have detected the sensor sweep and found them. How many times do we hear “we’re being scanned” or something like that? LUIGI NOVI (Lnovi) on Sunday, November 05, 2006 - 1:31 pm: But with the Defiant cloaked, there's not much they could've done about it. How long would the scan have taken? Scan it, find the bomb, beam it out, zip-zap, they're out of there. Aaron Dotter (Dotter31) on Sunday, November 05, 2006 - 3:59 pm:''Wouldn't that affect the timeline? The Enterprise might have spent time searching for the nonexistent source of the scan, perhaps delaying them on their next mission. It is certainly possible that there would be a 24th Century way of scanning them that would not be detected (much like the way they beamed onboard the Enterprise) ''Aaron Dotter (Dotter31) on Monday, November 06, 2006 - 5:58 am: True. I did wonder how the Enterprise missed the explosion of the bomb- that wasn't cloaked. Wouldn't they have searched for the source of that? Torque, Son of Keplar (Polls_Voice) on Monday, November 06, 2006 - 11:16 am: Maybe they concluded it was an exploding Tribble. There were Klingons around remember. I mean its not like beaming a tribble into space would be something the Klingons wouldn't mind doing, and they'd probably do more. It would be dishonorable to make an unarmed enemy suffocate and freeze in a vacuum so they strapped some explosives to it too. ' # Shouldn’t Worf have himself surgically altered, as he did in Homeward (TNG), to appear more like a contemporary Klingon? 'Josh M on Wednesday, April 09, 2003 - 5:44 pm: Why would he want to look like a Klingon. They're the Federation's enemy. It would most likely only cause trouble. As for his current appearance, since it is a deep space station I'm sure that rare or unknown aliens visit once in a while. It wouldn't be that weird.' # ''John A. Lang on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 9:31 pm: Dax says that one of her previous hosts lived in Kirk's era. If the previous host was a Trill (with lots of spots), why does Jadzia Dax have her spots removed? Dan Gunther on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 12:27 am: My best guess is that there are no Trills serving on the NCC-1701 at the time, and therefore, Jadzia removed them to masquerade as a human crewmember, of which there were a-plenty! :) # John A. Lang (Johnalang) on Saturday, March 23, 2013 - 2:14 pm: In the Turbolift, why is O'Brien suggesting that when Lt. Watley was talking to Bashir, he noted that "She was talking to you to get to me" (or something like that) Did O'Brien forget he was married? ''Benn (Benn) on Saturday, March 23, 2013 - 4:12 pm:''For one thing, just because he's married doesn't mean O'Brien wouldn't feel an ego boost from having another woman ogle him. It means he's still attractive. Moreover, who said he was serious about Lt. Watley being more interested in him than Bashir? O'Brien may have said that just to tease the doctor, joking with him. # Bajoran deputies wear brown shirts with orange shoulders. Why is the injured orb deputy wearing a pink shirt with red shoulders? He looks like command branch militia instead of a deputy. =Notes= Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine